These are the personal impressions of someone who was around during the depression.
The article says
The area around Jamestown was largely a one-crop economy, wheat. Right after WWI, wheat was selling for $2.95 on Minneapolis markets.
It wouldn't last. The export market declined,...and by the end of 1921, wheat had fallen to 92 cents a bushel.
In the early ’30s, the price dropped even more. The prices were around 36 cents in 1932,
53 cents in 1938,and it rose to 67 cents by 1940.
When the (wheat) market failed, the bottom fell out of everything. Personal income for the whole year of 1929 averaged only $375 in North Dakota.
The Depression, begun on the farm,... pulled the rest of the economy down too.
Farmers were unable to repay their loans.
Banks were forced to close.
Banks had extended their resources too far, and since there was no insurance on deposits, savers lost $50 million in North Dakota alone.
Some banks had loaned out nearly three times as much money as they had on deposit.
By 1933, 575 or two-thirds of the banks in the state had to close.
Speculation on the stock market added to the chaos.
Some people bought stock on credit; When the market rose, they resold it, paid their debts and kept the change. But that worked only on a rising market. When the market began to slip, it became a landslide. Entire fortunes were lost overnight.
Soup lines were established in the big cities, and thousands of people marched, demanding the federal government do something.
Franklin Roosevelt was president, and he directed the creation of a whole host of relief programs — some of which were declared unconstitutional — but they had achieved their purpose of getting money to the needy.
The first was FERA, the Federal Emergency Relief Act. Congress appointed $500 million in 1933 to be matched by the states, but some of the states were unable to do it, so they were foreign. The money came in direct grants for state distribution so it got out to the people quickly.
By 1934, one-third of the people in North Dakota were on “relief” as it was called, then the program was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Other programs distributed food and cloth to make mattresses, blankets and clothing. Workshops in Williston and Minot made up to 30 mattresses a day, while other groups processed food for free distribution. That program brought $8 million to North Dakota. (New York with all its people received $10 million).
The FERA-WPA program built over 15,000 miles of road in the state, over 400 public buildings, over 100 dams, as well as many recreational facilities. They paid over 1,800 teachers where school districts had no money so school could continue, and they provided part-time jobs for students to earn $6 a month for necessities.
In the winter of 1936-37 over 53,000 people were working on public projects earning $40 a month for 100 hours work. We had a road graveling project in our township where the men shoveled the gravel on horse-drawn wagons then spread it on the roads. Eight-hundred women were also employed and they made over 800,000 garments for free distribution.
The Resettlement Administration was created in 1936 specifically to keep farmers on the land. This later became the Farm Security Administration, then the Farmers Home Administration. It had rehabilitation loans, direct grants, and community projects to help sustain rural communities.
A program called the Civilian Conservation Corps —CCC — hired young men to build recreation areas and plant trees — there was a program for everyone. By 1940, $266 million in federal aid had come into the state in one form or another, and times began to improve.
Farm programs began in 1933 with the creation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act — AAA. Its purpose was to increase farm income by paying farmers to reduce production, so it was the beginning of acreage allotments, support prices and marketing orders. It was declared unconstitutional in January 1936, so Congress hurried to find a substitute, and passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment act on Feb. 29, 1936.
This program paid farmers for performing soil conserving practices and introduced the parity concept. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 began the farm stored commodity loan program, and a direct payment program to bring prices up to parity levels. The weather improved in the late ’30s and with the incentives of the farm programs, production increased so large surpluses of wheat, corn and cotton, were on hand as we entered the ’40s.
The drought and Depression of the ’30s left a permanent mark on those who lived through it. The decade shaped attitudes which persist today — for better or for worse.
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